Bleeder

Denmark 1999

Reviewed by Chris Darke

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

Copenhagen, the present. Video-store worker Lenny is visited by his friend Leo who announces his girlfriend Louise is expecting a child. When Leo returns home, Louise's brother Louis, a smalltime gangster, insults him. Lenny is in love with fast-food worker Lea and tries unsuccessfully to chat her up. Planning to spend the evening watching videos, Lenny, his boss Kitjo, Leo and Louis stop in a grocery store run by a couple of Muslims whom Louis racially abuses. Later, Lenny asks Lea out to a movie but eventually stands her up. Leo shows Lenny a gun he's bought. Louise meets Mika, a young mother with two children, and invites them back to the flat. Their presence makes Leo feel awkward and he hits Louise after they leave.

During a video-watching session at Kitjo's house, Leo draws a gun on Louis - who threatened him earlier - and shoots, but it is loaded only with blanks. Later, Leo and Louise have a violent argument, and he kicks her in the stomach. Louis beats Leo unconscious and injects him with HIV-contaminated blood. Leo calls Louise who tells him she's lost the baby; they agree they still love each other. Leo tracks Louis down, shoots him and then himself. Some time later, Lenny visits the graves alone. He finds Lea and arranges another date.

Review

In an age when flip irony and pastiche are the defining ingredients of the crime movie, Danish director Nikolas Refn demonstrated with his debut film Pusher that it's still possible to make a gangster film with sympathetic, full-blooded characters and emotional bite. So it's pleasing to report that Bleeder - the second in a proposed trilogy dealing with underclass criminals living in deprived areas of Copenhagen - is a further development along these lines. Where Refn's debut locked the viewer tightly in the point of view and predicaments of its lead protagonist, Bleeder casts its narrative net wider, hauling in a broader selection of characters.

What sets Refn apart from other tyro directors essaying the crime movie is an ability to create characters who are true to the genre's demands but also grounded in a recognisable social reality. Petty criminals, impoverished parents-to-be, the uncertain and culturally disenfranchised Leo, Louise, Louis and Lenny are all authentic urban creations. Moreover, these rooted, complex characters are a far cry from the wisecracking self-aware ciphers who strolled through such recent British Tarantino rip-offs as Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Fast Food.

The archetypal video-store geek, Lenny absorbs the kind of violent schlock which Lock, Stock director Guy Ritchie and others have paid uncritical homage to in their films. But Refn doesn't patronise Lenny. Instead he's offset against the willowy object of his desire, Lea, a voracious reader who prefers vastly different fare from the hardcore action flicks Lenny watches with his mates. In one sequence Lea visits a second-hand bookstore, with its dusty stacks and an aged bibliophile tending his warren of writing. The mise en scène here underlines her part in an older, endangered world of cultural values. The linking of bookishness with femininity is curiously old-fashioned, evoking the kind of romanticism one associates more with the films of Wim Wenders, Jean-Luc Godard and Krzysztof Kieslowski.

Alongside this cultural referencing, the film demonstrates how petty crime is increasingly knitted into many socially marginalised lives. Refn's portrait of the criminal economy has a melancholy tinge to it. His men are largely losers, locked into a world of posturing machismo. Without words to articulate the longing that boils beneath the hardman carapace they can only explode into violence.

So, is Bleeder simply Pusher with girls? On one level, yes, and it's all the better for it. But given the humanity shown to its characters, the insistence on linking criminal and cultural lives, and the locked-in, combustible emotional feel, the film combines formal control with thematic ambition. All this further underscores that Refn is shaping up into an intriguing director.

Credits

Director
Nikolas Winding Refn
Producers
Nikolas Winding Refn
Henrik Danstrup
Thomas Falck
Screenplay
Nikolas Winding Refn
Director of Photography
Morten Sÿborg
Editor
Anne Østerud
Production Designer
Peter de Neergaard
Music
Peter Peter
©Kamikaze ApS
Production Companies
AKamikaze production in association with Scanbox Denmark, TV2 Denmark, Zentropa Entertainment and
TempoMedia
Line Producer/
Production Manager
Christel C.D. Hansen
Unit Production Manager
Mette Hesthaven
Post-production Supervisor/Co-ordinator
Tove Jystrup
Assistant Director
Mette Hesthaven
Script Supervisor
Sedsel Andersen
Script Adviser
Nicolaj Scherfig
B Camera
Ian N. Tomkins
Steadicam Operators
Flemming Laybourn
2nd Unit:
Dick Ying
Inferno
Thomas Byg
Sonne A/S
Special Effects
Lars Kolding Andersen
Hummer Højmark
Graphics
Jabali Ravn
Storyboard Artist
Louise Trampedach
Costume Designer
Loa Miller
Make-up
Louise Bruun
2nd Unit:
Trine Cordes
Special Make-up Effects
Louise Bruun
Title Design
Jabali Ravn
Main/End Titles
Trick-Film
Jan-Erik Sandberg
Soundtrack
"Mit lille reservat" performed by C.V. Jørgensen; "Love" performed by M.S. Mongstad; "Babies Ablaze" performed by Torben Lendager, Peter Peter; "Final Solution", "Ringside of My Soul" performed by Bleeder; "In Essence" performed by Lovebites; "Nineteen" performed by 9teen; "Good Evening Mr. Whack" performed by Jesper Binzer; "Dommedag nu" performed by Den Gale Pose; "Stone Cold Dead" performed by Lulu; "Attack of the Honey Bees" performed by Düreforsög, Goodiepal; "Sick Science" performed by Peter Kyed; "Forever Together" performed by Walkers; "Love" performed by Velour de Ville
Sound Design/Sound Recordist
Svenn Jakobsen
B Sound Recordists
Mick Råschou
Post-production:
Mick Råschou
Jim Skau Andersen
Re-recording Mixers
Kristian Eidnes Andersen
Svenn Jakobsen
Foley
Julien Naudin
Stunt Co-ordinator
Hit & Run
Stig Günther
Cast
Kim Bodnia
Leo
Mads Mikkelsen
Lenny
Rikke Louise Andersson
Louise, Leo's girlfriend
Liv Corfixen
Lea
Levino Jensen
Louis, Louise's brother
Zlatko Buric
Kitjo
Claus Flüggare
Joe
Ole Abildgaard
video shop customer
Gordana Radosavljevic
Mika
Marko Zecewic
Marko
Dusan Zecewic
Dusan
John Barimani
kiosk owner
Ramadan Huseini
friend in kiosk
Karsten Schrøder
Røde
Svend Erik Eskeland Larsen
Svend
Troels Richter Knudsen
Troels
Søren Vestergaard
Søren
Ivan Jovanicic
Ivan
Danny Mortensen
Danny
Sebastian Sandbeck
Seb
Leif Norreballe
wretched man
Leif Norreballe
antiquarian bookshop manager
Charlotte Fuchs
girl in grillbar
Certificate
18
Distributor
Metrodome Distribution Ltd
8,771 feet
97 minutes 28 seconds
Dolby SRD
In Colour
Super 35 [2.35:1]
Subtitles
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011